Great disappointment

I had bought two Lumixes before and had been happy with them. However, when I tried to use this one, I found it did not have English menus. When I called the Panasonic helpline, I was told that they could not help me. I could not get a firmware update, they would not change the camera for one with English menus and I would be stuck with Japanese menus I could not read. Their was no warning on the box, at least that I could read, to inform me the language choices had been removed.

Having talked to the helpline and tried to deal with their attitude, I will never buy any Panasonic product again.

The fact that I bought this product in Japan, which is where I live, should not mean that I am delivered and inferior and crippled model, which happens to be sold with the same model number as the export model.

The reasons for selling products in Japan with only Japanese menus while export models have a choice of languages are dubious to say the least. When a customer who speaks but does not read Japanese, calls up to request English menus on a model whose specifications as published in English include a language choice is basically told he can get no help and is tuck with a crippled product, it becomes evident that Panasonic does not care one iota about customers and has no understanding of what customer service should be.